Atonement
by ancientandmostnoble
Summary: James Potter's atonement is made up of three parts, much guilt and quiet resignation. 'I think I often caught glimmers of a smothered longing in the eyes of both, a tension that began to build up in our fifteens.' Inspired by Ian McEwan's novel
1. Chapter 1

Atonement

**Atonement**

**First Part**

The dates in bold are the key events that make up James' atonement.

_September 1971. _Lily Evans and Remus Lupin meet for the first time on the Hogwarts Express. She becomes the first friend of his life.

_November 1971. _James Potter starts developing a crush on Lily Evans.

_  
January 1972. _Lily Evans and Remus Lupin promise each other in the Gryffindor common room that they will be best friends, forever

_  
November 1973. _James Potter makes his feelings known to Lily Evans by asking her out. She refuses.

_May 1974. _Lily Evans finds out that Remus Lupin is a werewolf

_  
June 1974. _Remus Lupin falls in love with Lily Evans and her eyes during Charms

_  
October 1975. _Remus Lupin goes on a date at Hogsmeade with Anne Durell. Lily realises she's jealous, and frightened by this new feeling, she avoids him for a week. She pretends nothing has happened, and so does Remus.

_November 1975. _Lily Evans and Remus Lupin realise that their friendship is failing, and that a strange other feeling is trying to intrude. She is irritable and he is elusive. They avoid looking in each other's eyes. They are easily angered with one another. She hates Anne Durell.

_**May 1976**_Lily Evans and Remus Lupin open their feelings to each other.

June 1976. Remus Lupin informs Lily Evans that she won't have an easy future with him. He writes on a leaf a tentative advice for Lily the day before the summer holidays start. She says that she will follow wherever he may choose to go.

_**August 1976. **_Lily Evans plans to pursue a research for the cure of lycantrophy after graduating from Hogwarts. She plans via letters her future with Remus.

October 1976. Lily Evans and Remus Lupin make love for the first time, behind the greenhouses.

_February 1977. _James Potter finds out that Remus Lupin and Lily Evans have been together for ten months. He buries the jealousy and rage deep inside.

_**April 1977. **_James Potter, after witnessing the scene of his dreams interpreted by his best friend and the girl he loves, is driven by rage to hide Remus' Wolfsbane the night before the full moon.

**  
**  
**8th of August 1976**  
_Dearest Remus,  
I'm writing to you from the roof. Don't be upset now, I simply couldn't resist. I tried sleeping on the floor, but it doesn't work. The opened window doesn't help, you know how Petunia is paranoid about the possibility of thieves creeping in. I think of you and of what you wrote on the leaf that you gave me before going back home. 'Yes, your heart is yours, but that doesn't mean it will help you to make the right choice.' Remus, you reason with your brains too much. I want you to understand that nothing can change what I decided. I'm just as seventeen as you are, and cleverer. I will go with you to Saint Mungo in September: I've heard that the Wolfsbane will finally be out by then. I will go to whichever place you wish to go. Except maybe for America. If you want to go there after Hogwarts, then I'll have to think about it._

Your Lily.

ps. I have carried out my research, and I've found a career opportunity, if you can call it that. Some group of Healers have organised something that is called the LCL, namely Let's Cure Lycantrophy. No, I've just made that up. It's called Independent Foundation for Lycantrophy Studies, and they're recruiting the best wizards and witches interested in finding a cure. I know you will tell me that my brains are wasted for such a helpless cause, but listen to me. My goal in life is you, so what could be better than joining the IFLS? 


	2. Chapter 2

Second chapter

**Second chapter**

**18th of May 1976**  
The clock struck three. Lily was feeling restless that night. The air pressing in the Gryffindor common room felt stifling despite the cool breeze weaving from the open windows. She sat on one of the tables with her legs crossed, because the velvety material that draped the armchairs warmed her thighs with the ardour of an oven. Lily's red hair hung heavily on the sides of her face, as if the humidity of which she was so convinced was filling the room had impregnated into each gap found within her mane. It was hot, and beads of sweat fell onto the dark, hard wood of the table she was stubbornly sitting on.

She was burning with the familiar sense of dread and doubt that gripped her monthly during one moon-lit night. It had devotedly followed her for two years, and those were the worst nights of her life. She wasn't afraid of Remus risking death or serious injuries.

She feared the pain he had to endure. How many times did she sneak into the Restricted Section of the library, hunting down all the books she could find on lycantrophy? How could she forget the night she read the most accurate descriptions of a typical transformation, the most meticulous details on the most horrific pain she had ever laid her eyes upon? She had cried so much that night. She would never have imagined, not for all the gold in the world, how much suffering Remus had to endure every month. She remembered herself wishing that she could share that pain with him, as long as it soothed his soul a bit.

However, Lily had never felt so uneasy before. She could tell that something went wrong. The clock struck four. She was feeling restless that night. Oh, if only that feeling of ominousness could untie itself from the strings of her heart!

She jumped on her feet. How was it possible that it took her an hour to reach the most obvious of conclusions? Lily was going to find him. Who the hell cared if he was in the middle of a transformation? She was feeling exultant, victorious: she was happy to risk being bitten, injured or even killed, as long as she was sure that he was alright.

Truth was, their friendship was not at its best. She had felt it from the moment Sirius told her that Anne Durell had stolen Remus' first kiss, seven months ago. Yes, she did refuse to speak to him for a whole week after the discovery, but then everything went back to normal. Or she thought it did. Nothing made much sense anymore after the almost archaic foundations of her friendship with Remus started to crumble. Because he had been her point of reference for all those years, her candle in a moonless night. But candles - their flames consume them.

It was just plain difficult to look at him in the eyes these days. Even more difficult was talking to him. They discussed their homework, they commented on the weather and the latest Transfiguration test. But Lily felt stuffy and uncomfortable, her hands clammy; sometimes she just disliked Remus and his generosity. How could everything have changed so drastically? She hated him for sneaking off unnoticed every night at full moon, triggering the automatic gnawing of the dread in her heart.

Her smouldering cheeks cooled as she sped feverishly towards the Forbidden Forest. If an instant ago she had felt boiling, she was now shivering. A chill was perpetrating in her bones, as Lily bred her delirious conviction: somewhere in the forest, something had happened to Remus. It was at the very mouth of the forest that the weeping started. Now, even with the light streaming from her wand, she couldn't see properly.

Leaves rustled uneasily beneath her feet. Even the branches of the trees looked sinister, all pointing to the same direction, rows of bowing servants indicating the way to the ballroom. Owls did not hoot that night.  
She found him deep in the forest, near the pixie-infested little stream. He wore deep wounds on his pale arms, which were turning from crimson to a spreading purple. His eyes were open, but his gaze was as dead as the blood-furred remnants of the rabbit lying next to him. Relief flooded her.

"Lily. Is that you?" Remus asked flatly. She suppressed the tears and knelt beside him.

"Yes, Rem, it's me." She would have liked to say more, tell him not to worry, because she was there with him now. But nothing came out, except for an exasperated sob.

"I'm a monster, Lily," said Remus. She knew immediately of what he was referring at. The red of the rabbit's blood shimmered on its snowy coat. His shame was just as gapingly obvious. Lily squeezed his cold hand.

"I didn't want to, Lily. The mere thought - the mere idea... it disgusted me, but... I am a werewolf. It disgusted me, but... it appealed to me too. I _am_ a monster," said Remus in a low voice.

"Yes you are a monster," snapped Lily. Remus' hand stiffened.

"You are a monster, Remus. You are merciless and cruel... to leave me in that stupid common room once every month, with only your reassurances to cling to." The weeping started again.

"I am sick of pretending not to care, Remus." There. The maximum extent of her sincerity. Her way of telling him that he was everything to her, her words to affirm love.

Caring. Love. For Lily, they blended into Remus.

If it had been anyone else, say, James Potter to have heard these words from her, he would not have understood. But Remus did, because she was the one thing he was certain about, and he always caught every nuance of her spoken, and non spoken words.

"I am sick of it too, Lily." The ominous significance of the dead rabbit did not even enter Lily's mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Third chapter

**Third chapter**  
**  
17th of September 1981**  
This is the final part of my atonement. My name is James Potter, and I have committed irreparable deeds.

As I write I wonder if the guilt will ever wear off, if the effort of my atonement will ever serve at anything. I certainly did try my hardest. I scoured through Remus' innermost drawers and corners to find the letter written by Lily Evans on the 8th of August 1976. I worked through the seemingly impossible magic that my wife put on the secret diary of her days at Hogwarts in order to create the timeline of her years with Remus. But toughest of all, the most painful of all, I plucked all the courage that I could find to use my imagination in telling the episode of May 1976 with my own words.

What role did I play in their story? Sirius, Peter and I had been best friends with Remus since the beginning, but none of us can deny the fact that Lily got there first.

They often spoke about their future together during our last and seventh year. She would often repeat to Remus that if they had children, they would have green eyes and pointy teeth. He replied by saying that if they bought a house by the sea, he would teach them how to swim and fish. This I overheard in April 1977; five days before Remus leaving Hogwarts forever, two days before Lily realised she would never hold a green-eyed, pointy-teethed child in her arms, the day I stole Remus' Wolfsbane.

I started to love Lily very early in my school life, most probably before Remus did. I think I often caught glimmers of a smothered longing in the eyes of both, a tension that began to build up in our fifteens.

However, during a rainy February afternoon in 1977, the realisation that they had been together for almost ten months made me too shocked to let the anger be expressed. If I reacted impulsively, Remus would have probably made one big sacrifice for the sake of our friendship, and leave Lily for me, thinking that at least she was safe with a normal human being.

Instead, I buried the jealousy and the rage, badly, so that they easily scrambled back with the destructive power that put an end to this story. I stole Remus' Wolfsbane the day before the full moon. The consequences can just be imagined.

His animal instinct took over his human one, urging him to break away from the Shrieking Shack. By very chance a sixth year was swaggering by, too drunk to realise that in less than an hour he would be flown to Saint Mungo's in mortal conditions. It took a whole day and a night for Remus to recover from the transformation endured without the usual dose of Wolfsbane. I remember that day and night for the vivid anguish on Lily's face, her unbelievable refusal to physically stay out of Remus' bed in the hospital wing. Two days after the incident Remus woke, and I remember leaning against the door of the hospital wing, listening to the muffled arguing, crying and occasional yelling that disgustingly filled me with hope.

Five days after the incident, Remus packed his bags and left Hogwarts, leaving behind the Marauders, the NEWTS, the myriad of opportunities and the vision of growing old with Lily.

Now Lily and I are married, hiding to live for the sake of our one year old son, Harry.

We haven't heard from Remus for a very long time.

And now I know, the shame will never quite rub off.


End file.
